Kairos

Nearly two weeks since I last journaled. One big happening since is learning that my best friend will be moving to Madison, WI in a month. I knew he and his wife were planning to move back to the midwest sometime this summer, but they've been saying things like that forever. Now it's for real, and I'll be pretty alone after that. That will change things for me, but life goes on and things work out.

Also, I've been functioning more and more in my "Operations Manager" role at work, which is another tough transition. I didn't want to be Director anymore, but it's tough to face up to being a failure and to see the reins be handed over to someone you don't have much professional respect for. So it can be hard, and harder still knowing that I'm the only one who can do the things I'm doing at work, the only one who has any grasp on how much needs to be done and how to get there, the only one who is going to make any of this work. And yet, somehow, I'm sure my successor will be credited with getting us through. Humility is a difficult meal to digest.

So with those two things, one might think I'm feeling down in the dumps. Sometimes that's true. Yet I'm not dominated by despair. The hard lessons are good ones, and in crisis comes opportunity. I've got hope that can only be a gift of God-- not an expectation of something specific, but an anticipation of some new, unimagined possibility. Besides, even though it's hard, it is good and sanity-reinforcing not to be responsible for so very much.

Party tonight at the Johnsons'-- they're hosting parties each Saturday night until they move.